How to Make a Fruit Fly Trap the Easy Way

This simple and cheap fruit fly trap will only take a two minutes to make and will kill many fruit flies over several days.



Each summer we get a few fruit flies in the kitchen. It doesn’t seem to matter how clean we keep it. They always show up on some of the fruit we buy from the store. Bananas seem to be the main culprit.

I made this trap after some reading online. Many of the suggestions were overly complicated, so I began experimenting. This trap only uses three ingredients: soap, water, vinegar.

After some experimentation, I learned that apple cider vinegar works better than white vinegar.

 

I also prefer using a coffee cup to a bowl. The color of the bowl or cup doesn’t seem to matter either.

 

How to Make the Fruit Fly Trap

1. I suggest using a coffee cup. Pour about 1/3 cup water into the cup. I don’t actually measure anymore as the exact measurement doesn’t mater. We aren’t making a cake here. :)
2. Pour about 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar into the cup. Again, this isn’t an exact measurement. It’s worth going to get some apple cider vinegar as it attracts many more fruit flies than white vinegar which also works, but not as well.
3. Add one drop of liquid soap and swish it around.
4. Leave it in an infected area and don’t disturb it.
5. Remove any fruit or vegetables from the area by eating them, putting them in the fridge, or composting them.

I usually leave my trap out for a week or two. It’ll keep working the entire time. The fruit flies are attracted by the smell of the vinegar. When the flies go in for a taste, the soap disturbs the surface tension and they fall in and drown. Easy, cheap, and very effective.